At today’s SBEC Board of Director’s meeting, your dedicated Board affirmed that regardless of any outside relief of the ERCOT market event, which will ultimately affect your billing, our members would not see the effects on just one billing cycle. Once we get our wholesale power bill and can determine the exact cost, your Board and staff will consider all options and devise a plan that will recover the necessary costs and lessen the overall impact to our members as much as possible. While the market price was exceedingly high at the time, we did have some contracts that will somewhat soften the impact.
We do not expect to receive SBEC’s wholesale power bill for this event until sometime mid-March. At that time, we will have firm numbers on what is owed. We will then decide how long it will take to make up this shortfall. Estimating the timeframe on our recovery, (based on what we know now) will be not in how many months - but how many years. We will be keeping our members’ best interests foremost in our decision-making process. I will not throw numbers out today without first seeing the complete impact on our rates caused by the storm. Just remember that your Board is a part of your community and any decisions made will be with your welfare in mind. I promise to keep you informed on any decisions we make as a cooperative or any legislative interventions into the matter. I am willing to take your calls to discuss the matter or your concerns.
Billy Marricle
General Manager
SBEC
1-800-364-3171